TEHRAN – Major Iranian industrial firms are going to fund the construction of 10,500 megawatts (MW) capacity of new power plants to meet their own electricity needs, Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Saeed Zarandi announced.

Making the remarks in an online seminar on electricity supply challenges in the steel industry on Sunday, Zarandi said the Energy Ministry has so far issued permits for 13 such companies to pursue building power plants, IRNA reported.

Speaking in the mentioned event, the official said: “challenges in electricity supply over the past three months have severely hampered the country's industrial and mining production plants and we are already worried about supplying power to such units in the winter.”

“It is predicted that we will have a shortage of at least 5,000 MW of electricity to reach the goal of producing 55 million tons of steel by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (starts in March 2025).”

He noted that the only way to compensate for these shortcomings is to get help from the industrial units themselves.

“The way out of this problem is to increase investment, and for this reason, we invited 100 large companies in the country to help in this regard; later the number of these companies increased to 500 and they have a high potential for investment,” Zarandi explained.

According to the official, some solar power plants are also planned to be established for the country’s industrial parks as well to help meet their electricity needs.

Back in July, Zarandi had announced the signing of an MOU with the Energy Ministry for constructing power plants for big industries.

“Since earlier this year, the Industry Ministry, on behalf of the industrial sector, started seeking a permit for building 13 power plants. We held several meetings with Tavanir [Iran's Power Generation, Distribution, and Transmission Company] and the Energy Ministry and proposed to sign a memorandum of understanding with the ministry. We also sent a letter to the Energy Ministry last week to expedite the issuance of the permit,” the official explained.

The mentioned power plants are financed by 12 investors from various industrial sectors and will be constructed within 2.5-3 years, according to him.

One of the main goals of this program is to provide reliable and sustainable electricity to high-consuming industries and the country’s industrial parks in order to reduce the pressure imposed on the national grid in the industry and mining sector, the official said.

“If these power plants are built, a significant load will be removed from the national electricity distribution network,” he stressed.

The official further noted that in case of any surplus electricity generation, the industrial units can sell the surplus electricity to the Energy Ministry.

EF/MA